929.] 
( 193) 
MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 
Sailors and Saints. 3 vols. 12mo.; 
1829.—This is the joint production, not of 
2 sailor and a saint, but of a sailor and no 
saint, hic est, a templar—the Orestes and 
Pylades of the Naval Sketch Book, a book 
which met with a warmer welcome than any 
thing, so technical and professional, since 
the days of Dr. Moore. The templar’s 
share in the concern is not very detectable, 
though without doubt the scene of a Scotch 
reformer, soliciting signatures from the 
sailors against pressing and flogging, is his, 
for it smacks of \politics; and in some 
courts of the Temple there is, we know, 
more politics than law. The title is chosen 
mainly, or merely, for the alliteration—the 
mother of the heroine is, to be sure, a saint, 
and, so far as she is concerned, the object is 
to shew how thoroughly worldly an attend. 
ant on preachings and biblical meetings 
can, or rather must, be—which is, we think, 
a little invidious, because, though profes- 
sion is not a good thing, profligacy is not 
better ; and profession may be accompanied 
with correct conduct, whilst profligacy has 
nothing to redeem or relieve it. It shews 
no great advance in good feeling to be im- 
patient of others’ professions, or of pursuits 
uncongenial with our own. 
The leading purpose of the chief contri- 
butor is, plainly, not to teli a story, but to 
exhibit the life and profession of a sailor, 
and, above all, the management and con- 
duct of a ship—to detail the constituents of 
good seamanship—the superiorities of the 
existing practice, &c., of all which we are 
no competent judges ; but the author writes 
confidently, and, as far as we can see, clearly 
and cleverly. Insulars as we are, the Eng- 
lish language is as full of sea metaphors as 
the Greek ; and there is as strong a leaning 
to bring them into popular and public use— 
and even our poets and novelists cannot re- 
frain. Blunder, there can be no doubt, 
they do often enough, and the author has 
taken occasion to overhaul 2 few of them— 
sometimes in the shape of notes, and some- 
times by the taunts of the commodore. 
” -“ Breasting her broad bow to the billows, 
_ she dauntlessly cuts through the foaming 
fluid, as the huge ship Jore up gallantly 
against the wind.” “Downright nonsense,’’ 
exclaims the Commodore—“ who ever heard 
of a ship bearing wp in the wind’s eye ?” 
Among the “lubberly” phrases he detects 
in the “ Mariner’s Song””—“ wet sheet, and 
a flowing sea,” the author of which, he sup- 
poses, must somewhere have heard of a flow- 
ing sheet and a following sea, and to have 
confounded the real reading with the meta- 
phorical meaning. A ship is said to have 
a “flowing sheet’? when the wind crosses 
the /ine of her course at right angles, that 
is to say, a ship stecring south, with the 
wind at west, has a flowing sheet; for if 
the were “ close hauled,” she would lie two 
_ M.M. New Series.—Vou.VII. No. 38. 
a 
points nearer to the wind, viz. 8.8.W. We 
may add here, too, from the guthority be- 
fore us, that the s/reets, which are univer~- 
sally mistaken by “ English Bards,” and 
even “ Scotch Reviewers,’’ and their read- 
ers, for the sails themselves, are no other 
than the ropes employed to extend the clues, 
or lower corners, of the sails to which they 
are attached. 
Now to the story. An old captain, of 
the Trunnion school, laid upon the shelf, 
has a cottage on the shore near Dartmouth, 
in which every thing is kept ship-shape. His 
old coxswain is his factotum—dressed in 
blue jacket and white trowsers— another 
Pipes, only a little more talkative, who 
manages every thing within and without, 
and as well as his master, can talk nothing 
but sea slang, The family consists of a 
widowed sister—the saint—and her daughter, 
a very charming girl, of course, for she is to 
be the heroine. Matters commence with a 
brig of war anchoring in the offing, and the 
approach of an officer, whom the old com- 
modore mistakes for the captain, and is in- 
duced by the young lady to go forward and 
meet him. Though mounting an epaulette, 
he proves to be nothing but the second lieu- 
tenant. In the commodore’s days, this 
epaulette marked the post captain; but 
honours and insignia haye always advanced, 
pari passu, with corruption. ‘Though an- 
noyed by this blunder, he gives the youth a 
hearty welcome, and an invitation to dinner. 
The lieutenant is a clever and active scuv.v, 
with a consfant eye to promotion, and falls 
in leve, of scurse, wich the young lady, and 
contrives to get on shore every day as long 
as the brig remains in the neighbourhood. 
The intimacy proceeds, not only with the 
commodore, but also with the young lady. 
Mamma looks blue—and does all she can to 
repress the growing inclination of the par- 
ties to each other. The commodore delights 
in depreciating the new fangled ways of the 
nayy, and deals out his criticisms very 
liberally. By and by a party is proposed 
to visit the ship; when, unluckily, a fit of 
the gout ties him by the leg, and the ladies 
are entrusted to the coxswain. An accident 
follows, the young lady is precipitated into 
the sea, and rescued by the lieutenant at the 
hazard of his life. This of course seals the 
matter of affection between them; and the 
mother is driven to sundry indirect ma- 
neuvres to keep them apart. 
In the meanwhile the ship puts to sea, 
and speedily takes fire, and a scene, as the 
reader will imagine, is got up, in the wri- 
ter’s best manner— which is a very su- 
perior manner — detailed, indeed, in the 
most minute and painful degree. The 
crew are of course preserved, and brought to 
shore. ‘The youth, though in a worse con- 
dition than ever, for he is now even without 
a ship, flies with all speed to the Dartmouth 
2C 
